Priced To Sell

November 20, 2008

In today’s volatile market, buyers expect to get a great deal when then purchase a home. It’s almost as if they want to be rewarded for being brave and credit worthy. So how do you price your home so that it’s competitive enough to get buyers looking at it, but high enough to allow the negotiating room buyers need so they can assure themselves they purchased the home at a discount?

A while back I showed a home that had been reduced for a quick sale. It was a great deal. The buyer I was working with loved the house and made an offer (90% of list price) on the home. The offer was rejected. When I asked if the buyer would have been happy with the purchase price if the home had originally been listed higher and he’d offered the current list price. The buyer admitted that buying the home at a discount was more important than finding the right house at the right price. He absolutely could not pay full list price for the home, even though the list price was below comparable homes.

It’s difficult for sellers to understand that some of the appreciation they’ve experienced over the last few years has been wiped out. But if a seller has owned for more than about 8 years, he still should have built up enough equity to be able to price well, leave a little room for negotiation and walk away from the table with some profit. Compare profits to what your stock portfolio or retirement is worth, and sellers in most parts of the country are still OK. Yes, there are areas in the country where sellers are upside down in their mortgages, but how many of these sellers have owned for more than 8 years?

So if you’re a seller with enough equity to negotiate, do so with grace and gratitude. Hopefully, you’ll get just a good a deal when you go to buy your next home!

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Local Information for Nashville, TN

Latitude: 36.154838 -- Longitude: -86.762141

Other Area Cities: Nashville La Vergne Belle Meade Brentwood Forest Hills Goodlettsville Hendersonville Lebanon Franklin

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Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County in the north-central part of the state. Nashville is a major hub for the health care, music, publishing, and transportation industries.It was the advent of the Grand Ole Opry in 1925, combined with an already thriving publishing industry, that positioned it to become "Music City USA". The Gaylord Entertainment Center was built as both a large concert facility and as an enticement to lure either a National Basketball Association or National Hockey League (NHL) sports franchise.Nashville has the largest metropolitan area in the state of Tennessee, spanning thirteen counties. As the "home of country music", Nashville has become a major music recording and production center. Nashville also has a small but growing film industry. Several major motion pictures have been filmed in Nashville, including The Green Mile, The Last Castle, Gummo, and Coal Miner's Daughter. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Tennessee 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Nashville	Tennessee	United States
Population	545,524	5,689,283	281,421,906
Median age	34	35.9	35.3
Median age for Male		34.5	34
Median age for Female		37.2	36.5
Households	0	2,232,905	105,480,101
Household population	0	5,541,337	273,643,273
Average household size		2.48	2.59
Families	0	1,547,835	71,787,347
Average family size		2.99	3.14
Housing units	0	2,439,443	115,904,641
Occupied units	227,403	2,232,905	105,480,101
Vacant units	0	206,538	10,424,540

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